


Life (The Entropy Suspended Remix)

by zulu



Category: House MD
Genre: Community: remixduello, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That age is best which is the first, when youth and blood are warmer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life (The Entropy Suspended Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bell (bellaboo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/gifts).
  * Inspired by [time](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/1639) by bell. 



> Many thanks to Topaz for the beta.

Remy licked salt from her lips. The last of the roasted chestnuts in her little paper container looked lonely, but it'd lost the piping hotness that made them delicious. She let the container fall in the next garbage can they passed and tucked her arms around Foreman's elbow. "You," she told him, leaning her temple against his shoulder, "don't know how to live."

Foreman chuckled softly. That was already an improvement. Foreman could get so serious. Gloomy seriousness when they were working, and earnest seriousness when he was trying to act like her doctor. "What makes you think that?" he asked.

Remy shook her head. "Is this part of your seduction routine?" she asked, instead of answering the question. Lake Carnegie glimmered grey in front of them, luminous under the early sunset. Their boots crunched along the snowy path, the cold all but snatching the breath out of their mouths in bursts of mist. A vee of geese passed overhead in a flurry of wingbeats, honking to each other.

"What _routine_?" Foreman asked with a laugh. "You think I take all the girls here?"

"Yes," Remy said plainly. "I think you try to impress women exactly like this. Can we count the number of things you've showed off just by bringing me here?" She held up one gloved hand and started counting off on her fingers. "You brought me to the most beautiful park in Princeton, so you're both a nature lover and, contrary to expectations, you're not obsessed with work. You buy me roast chestnuts, so you're a traditional kind of guy but also spontaneously romantic. It's just cold enough that you could offer me your jacket and show that you're both generous and selfless...has anyone _not_ slept with you after a date like this?"

Foreman snorted, which meant that no, no one had ever resisted his magnificence. And, yes, the magnificence was implied. Remy didn't know if it was Foreman's tailored suits, his late-model Lexus that was dark, smooth, and gleaming enough to use as a laser-focusing mirror, or just the way he held himself, but there was a hell of a lot of work that had gone into Eric Foreman: The Experience. "I'm not trying to get into your pants," he said. "You jumped me yesterday, remember?"

As a matter of fact, she had. And Foreman had been kind, generous, and selfless in bed, too. Since Remy knew he was a selfish bastard, she'd enjoyed herself thoroughly and still finished the night unsatisfied. Even waking up to Foreman's hard-on rubbing against her ass and his warm, suggestive hand trailing over her stomach hadn't made up for how careful he'd been the first time. "That's what I mean," she said, pressing the attack. " _I_ know how to live. I knew what I wanted and I went for it."

"I know what I want," Foreman said. Remy had expected him to stiffen up and get defensive, but instead he sounded supremely smug. That was her fault; she'd given him the most enthusiastic blowjob she knew how to dish out, in revenge for the sweet, slow way he'd gone down on her.

"But you don't chase it down," she said. "You don't go out and get it."

Foreman was starting to get fed up, finally. She'd prodded at his ambition, which was probably the only way to get him truly pissed off. "Am I missing something?" he asked. "I thought we had a good time last night. You wanted to be here."

Remy wrinkled her nose. The snow was glinting like a million diamonds, the air was the exact degree of damp and cold that could be cured by buying the biggest size of Starbuck's latte and sitting in the overstuffed couches next to the fake fireplace, and Foreman's arm around her waist was firm, strong, and just on the near side of gentlemanly. "I do. I just want to know what you want," she said. "Don't give me this schmaltzy second-date stuff, Foreman. At this rate I'll be dead before you admit we've gone a little past the getting-to-know-you stage."

That shut him up. Remy risked a glance at Foreman's face and saw the storm clouds gathering. Oh, great. He was pouting. "When I want somebody," she said, ignoring the signs, "I go to a bar. I get drunk. I hit on somebody and take her home."

"Right, and that was doing you a world of good," Foreman said. He was always on more certain ground whenever he could judge her life choices.

"My point is, I was getting laid because I wanted to get laid," Remy said, rolling her eyes. "I don't need long walks on the beach to be happy. I was with lots of women because that's what I wanted. Yeah, it didn't work out, but it was my choice." Remy was not the perfect relationship. Whatever fantasies Foreman had about being her knight in shining armour, he could forget about them. Exasperated, she asked, "Have you done anything that wasn't laid out on the road map to the perfect career?"

"I did plenty," Foreman said, sounding stuffier by the minute. "And then I realized it wasn't getting me anywhere."

"And you haven't gone anywhere since," Remy said. "I may be dying, but at least I know how to live."

Foreman's breath puffed out in a little cloud of disgust. "I don't think you want to know what I really want," he said. "And I think I know a little more about taking a risk than you do."

God, she hated it when he got patronizing. "Try me," she taunted. They'd circled the park and had come out back near Foreman's car. Remy spun out of his arms and faced him. "Come on, Foreman. What do you really want?"

Foreman crossed his arms. In his bulky winter coat, he looked even more solid than she knew he was. Remy arched one eyebrow, refusing to be intimidated. He was good, he was kind, but if there wasn't anything more behind his facade than that, then--she knew where else to get what she wanted.

When Foreman finally got that he couldn't stare her down, he set his mouth and let out another smoky breath. "I want you to call me Eric," he said.

Remy's mouth opened, but she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Foreman's head fell to a skeptical angle, and still she couldn't find a retort. "At work...?" she finally asked, groping for the boundaries she'd thought she'd drawn so well.

He shook his head. "When we're like this," he said, and stepped forward. He drew one chilled finger along her cheek, and kissed her. Whatever he'd been holding back before--as if Remy hadn't known that he'd been keeping some part of himself from her--he wasn't now. The kiss came in a sudden rush of heat that made her forget they were outside at all, that felt real, and wanting. Remy kissed him back, closing her eyes and letting herself be swept away. The salt from the chestnuts melted away, and she could taste Eric, and everything he wanted.

He drew back afterwards with a serious, questioning look on his face. Remy held out her hand and he took it easily. So maybe he had some ideas about how to live, after all. "Come on, Eric," she said. "Let's go warm up."

* * *

The cath lab had a weird smell. Kutner kind of liked it. He sniffed a bit whenever he rolled a patient into the room, trying to find the exact words to describe what it was like. Some combination of whatever the janitors used to clean the hospital--that was everywhere, obviously--and old blood, the way ORs got after a while. But there was something else, too. Maybe X-rays themselves, if you did them often enough in one place, had a smell. In comics they would.

Nobody else ever mentioned it. Taub said the cath lab was just cold. Thirteen had deadpanned, "Could be the smell of myocardial tissue. Or just despair."

No way was it despair. You'd be more likely to smell that in the surgical waiting rooms or the ICU, not in a diagnostics suite. Kutner twitched his nose as he wheeled Mr. Pearson's gurney into the cath lab, following Foreman. "Don't worry, Mr. Pearson," he said, patting their patient on his shoulder. The poor guy was in a blurry daze of general sedation. He was just awake enough to let them know if anything went wrong with the angiogram, and he could probably use the reassurance. "You're gonna be just fine."

Okay, House had told him to stop telling the patients that, but it seemed like a good bet this time. Not like earlier. Mr. Pearson had a pretty massive coronary event in the morning. Kutner could still taste the excitement in the back of his throat, and almost--although it was fading--felt the echo of his drumming heartbeat.

They were in the cafeteria when it happened. That was House's idea, something about threatening Mr. Pearson with the daily misery of Princeton-Plainsboro's menu selections as a torture device to expose his lies about where exactly he was when his symptoms set in. Mr. Pearson's tactic of going into cardiac arrest topped House's strategy by a mile. Orderlies rushed in with a gurney and Kutner was the one who climbed on top and pounded away at Mr. Pearson's chest. He actually heard a few ribs break under his slamming hands. They raced back to Mr. Pearson's room and the nearest crash cart. It took five charges with the defibrillators to get him back into sinus rhythm, each one bursting through his body and lifting it right off the bed. Kutner felt like Thor, shooting lightning bolts out of his hands. Bringing the dead to life.

Nobody else ever seemed to get that rush. Kutner always wanted to spin around and offer a high-five to the nearest person after a thing like that. The guy had been dead, v-fib was _technically dead_ , and now he was back. Kutner had done that! But once Mr. Pearson was back, everybody else just looked tired, and worried, or in Foreman's case, pissed off that his diagnosis had been wrong.

House shrugged, popped a Vicodin, and ordered an angiogram and a heart biopsy. He also told Foreman to do the work. From the way Foreman was glaring as he set up the X-ray machines, he was taking it like a punishment for screwing up. And, okay, Kutner had to admit: that was probably how House meant it.

"All right, let's get started," Foreman said. "The sooner we get this analyzed, the sooner I get House off my back."

They got Mr. Pearson settled, and Kutner gave him a shot of lidocaine so that Foreman could thread the catheter into his brachial artery. Foreman might have been in a grumpy mood, but he was quick and he had a light touch. Pretty soon they were watching the black, snaky line on the monitor as Foreman pushed the catheter closer and closer to Mr. Pearson's heart. Kutner shook his head and watched wide-eyed. This was better than a million Saturday-morning cartoons back to back. Better than the new issue of X-Force the month after a cliffhanger.

"Almost got it," Foreman said.

"Wow, you're always in a rush," Kutner said, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Don't you want to take your time?"

Foreman glared at him. "I haven't made a mistake."

"I didn't say you did," Kutner said. "Okay, you're not rushing, but you're not enjoying yourself."

Foreman's glare softened, but his sneer really wasn't an improvement. It wasn't the first time somebody had called Kutner a freak with a look, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. "Kutner, I've got nothing between me and piercing a man's left atrium but a guide wire and a lot of practice. It's not exactly the time to stop and smell the roses."

"That's what I mean! We just threaded a tube less than two millimetres wide from this guy's arm right into his _heart_ ," Kutner said. "We injected the contrast dye right into his coronary artery! And we can see every heartbeat in real time. Doesn't that freak you out?"

"It would freak me out if I nicked an artery and triggered an MI," Foreman said. He started withdrawing the cath. His hands were steady, but he wasn't wasting a second.

Kutner sighed. Sometimes he really wondered if Foreman had a soul. He had to, but he was the most unlikely guy to let it show that Kutner has ever met. "People used to think that you thought with your heart," he said. "The ancient Egyptians kept the heart of their mummies but threw out the brain."

"The cath is clear." Foreman turned to the X-ray machines, going over the images they'd taken. "No atheromas..."

"Don't you ever feel like that? Like the heart's the really important part?"

Foreman stared at him and said flatly, "I'm a neurologist."

Kutner tried really hard not to roll his eyes. "Okay, but don't tell me you've never felt something so much it was all heart and no brain." There has to have been a moment, in Foreman's whole life, when he felt alive more than anything else, when he could hardly breathe because his heart was pounding so hard. Kutner loved that feeling, really lived for that feeling, when he could get it. "When you got into medical school?" he guessed. The only other time he could think of for Foreman was when Thirteen agreed to sleep with him (very cool), but Foreman wouldn't answer if Kutner brought up sex.

Foreman gave him that raised-eyebrow skeptical look of his, but he unbent a little and he let his shoulders drop. "Yeah. I've felt that way."

Kutner grinned. He wasn't going to gloat that he was right. But he _was_ right, and Foreman knew it. And they'd just done a test on a guy's heart by running a wire through his arteries. They were doctors, that had to be the most amazing part of their day. Foreman knew that, too, even if he didn't want to admit it. "Me too," Kutner said. "Pretty cool."

Foreman only chuckled, and switched off the machines, leaving Kutner to roll Mr. Pearson out of the room. "Let's go give House these results."

"Sure thing, Tin Man," Kutner said.

* * *

Amber bent over James as he sat in his desk chair and gave him a quick, goodbye kiss. She smiled as she stood up and swiped her thumb across his lips to take away the residue of her lipstick, but also to feel the small grin that, she knew, was only for her. James was so proper in the mornings, but Amber could still feel the warm glow of his smile as she sashayed out of his office.

Once James' office door was shut, Amber had a choice--head for the elevators, her car, and Princeton General thirty minutes away--or take a peek, just a peek, at House's latest case. She'd been fired, but as House knew better than anyone else, that wasn't enough to kill her curiosity. It was so early, House wouldn't be in anyway. The hospital was lucky if he graced it with his presence before ten.

Foreman, though, was already in. Intent on the nearly-empty hallway and the conference room door, Amber hadn't seen him until she was already committed. She wasn't the type to dither, and with the glass walls, he couldn't have missed her anyway, so she marched in as though she owned the place. Her favourite mug was still sitting on the drain board. Amber poured herself some coffee. The first pot was always the best, possibly because Foreman made it himself. Oh, she could feel him watching her, but she was hardly going to admit she missed the place, or that she didn't have any business being here.

"What's the case?" she asked, cupping the mug in both hands and nodding at the whiteboard. "I assume he's stable for now, or you would have left the others here overnight instead of bothering to come in early."

"You don't work here any more," Foreman said, with an expression that said he couldn't care less when she did and didn't drop by. As long as she didn't try to treat anyone without privileges, he wouldn't get in her way.

"I think I got the hint," Amber said. She studied the symptoms instead, as a cover for covertly checking the room for the chart. That would tell her what tests they'd been running, as well as what symptoms they'd startled the patient into revealing.

"Why are you here?" Foreman asked, curious enough to let his newspaper drop.

"Oh, like you belong here any more than I do?" Amber said. "At least I'm here this early because I was bringing James in. What's your excuse for working House's hours for him?"

Foreman looked baffled. "You're--dating Wilson?"

At that, Amber raised her eyebrows. He'd been honestly taken aback. She'd thought House would have trumpeted the news far and wide. A smile touched her lips; if House was keeping gossip as juicy as her to himself, it meant she'd gotten to him. How...interesting. "I am."

He blinked, and then shrugged. Even without a word, he couldn't have more obviously said that she'd done something stupid.

Amber bristled. Her choices were her own, and she didn't appreciate Foreman's judgement. "I wanted him," she said. "I assume you don't have a problem with that?"

"No problem, and no opinion," Foreman said. "Good luck to both of you."

"Don't you worry about me," she said. "I know about the three wives. The girlfriends..."

"Not that it's my business," Foreman said--it certainly wasn't--"but Wilson's cheating isn't the point. You had a chance to run as far as possible from House's orbit, and instead you seduced his best friend?"

"I couldn't see any better way to mess with him," Amber said. Although that wasn't true. James had been so sweet, those first days. She'd been...she didn't like to remember, but she'd been lost, at first, bereft without the job. She doubted Foreman wanted to hear the sob story, and she certainly wasn't going to tell it. "Don't tell me that doesn't motivate you some days."

"I'm here for the medicine," Foreman said dismissively.

Amber narrowed her eyes. His butter-wouldn't-melt attitude was such an act. "Well?" she asked. Dangerously, if only he knew her. "I've been out of the loop for over a month. Where's your patient?"

Foreman snorted, and picked the chart up from under the newspaper he'd spread on the table. "Knock yourself out," he said. "If House hears you had an idea, you know he's going to bug you about not being able to keep away."

"You can tell him I was here for the medicine," she said. She flipped through the pages, noting the procedures and the times. "Is that your excuse for a CT and an MRI _and_ an LP? Having trouble deciding _which_ medicine you're here for?"

Foreman sat back and folded his fingers together. "You know what House's methods are like..."

"House's methods are House's methods," Amber said. "But your methods are pure and only about what's good for the patient." She tossed her hair. "Don't give me that, Foreman. What are you really here for? For the medicine, or for the mystery? Or to pretend you might get one over on House?"

"Where the hell is this coming from?" Foreman demanded. "I'm doing my job. I'm a good doctor--"

"A good neurologist," Amber admitted. Fairness never hurt as long as it gained you something. And making Foreman stop and think for once was a very tidy gain. "But don't pretend you're above it all. House plays games and you're right there with him."

Foreman looked like he might protest again. Well, boo-hoo for his lost job and all the authority he thought he deserved. Life wasn't fair. He'd gotten the job that should have been hers; he didn't deserve to be able to ignore one simple fact. Amber put her fists on the table and leaned forward, staring him in the eyes and not letting him look away. "You are lucky," she said. "To still be here."

Foreman glared back at her. If he denied it, he really was past all help. He was that kind of guy, reaching for the best but never seeing what he had while he had it. He still had his dream job, whether he knew it or not. "Yeah," he said finally. "I know."

Amber stood up slowly, keeping an eye on him in case he tried to argue, and then shook her head. She had to go, or she'd be late for her own job. Finding shadows on the images she took did take some detective work, but it was hardly the same as getting the most fascinating cases in the tri-county area. Reluctantly, she let the chart fall back on the table and headed for the door. "Have you checked the creatinine level--?" she started, turning around.

Foreman grinned. "This morning. Blood's at the lab. We'll know by the time House gets in."

"You'll know."

Foreman put the paper down and met her eyes. The challenge between them had faded, and it was about the most pleasant she'd ever seen him. She wasn't about to admit it might be because she wasn't bucking orders or sneaking behind his back to treat patients. Correctly. "You'll find this again," he said.

"Of course I will," she sniffed. She had a good job, and she'd find another diagnostics job eventually. If all she had to do was show everyone around her that she was better than them, then she was nearly there already.

"I am glad about you and Wilson," Foreman said. "He needs something good in his life."

"Nice of you to say," Amber said. The pleasure of James' smile under her thumb was one thing, but support from a man who might just as easily not have cared at all meant something too. Something good. Foreman knew it when he saw it, and he knew they'd both find it, whatever they wanted. Foreman recognized she was a winner, because he wanted to be one too.

Satisfied, she left Diagnostics. She was already on the path to the life she wanted to live.

* * *

"So, what, you never had to live by your wits?" It didn't really feel worth it, to open her eyes, but Lupe was enough of a fighter that she wasn't going to sleep through the last hours of her life. Even if all she had to look at was this doctor who had killed her. He'd said he wasn't leaving, like that was supposed to be comforting. She'd be lucky if it didn't kill her sooner, just being annoyed at his prissy face.

"I'd say that's all I did," he said.

Lupe sneered at that, because it wasn't like she was even trying not to hate him. She could snark him off if she wanted. What was he gonna do? Kill her? "Oh, yeah, reading and writing and doing good in school," she said. "That's all you've done, that and suck up." It was getting darker now and she couldn't see the trees outside the window that'd been there before. It was only just spring and she wouldn't get another summer day. No more days sweating and stifled in a room with no aircon. What the hell was she even regretting?

"I did what I had to do," the doctor said.

"You didn't do shit," she answered dully. She didn't care about talking to him anymore. He was the one who wanted to act like he knew her. He didn't need her help if he wanted to play pretend. Making him uncomfortable was all she could do, so she was doing it. Some revenge.

He sighed, like she'd disappointed him, and he got up and left the room. Yeah, about what she'd expected. He was just like all the rest of them. She was 'difficult.' She was 'hard to handle.' Promises didn't mean shit when people finally learned that for real. Well, she'd lived by her wits whatever he thought, and she supposed she'd die by them, not that it took much thinking to lie there and cough like her lungs were full of sandpaper.

And then the door opened and he walked back in. Probably he got guilty after five minutes. He didn't sit on the dinky little visitor chairs by the wall this time, but came right up and sat beside her. At least he kept his hands to himself, because she _didn't_ like to be touched. "What?" she said, drawing back as well as she could, what with him sitting so close and staring at her like she was his dead puppy. Well, close enough.

"I found these," he said, holding out a pack of cards. Her cards, battered and greasy from all the time she'd used them. There were five missing from the deck, but that didn't matter if the marks didn't know. "In your things."

"Someone give you permission to go through my stuff?" About the same permission he'd gotten to go through her body, looking for something wrong.

The doctor flinched, and Lupe wanted to laugh, a little meanly. Not so many doctors had ever backed down when she talked, not when she swore and not when she threw things. They called in their rentacops and she got thrown out. Like that winter she'd probably had pneumonia for three months, and every clinic said it was flu and they couldn't do nothing for it. And he wondered why she hated hospitals.

"I thought you could show me," the doctor said. He pulled the tray table over, across her lap, and set the pack down in the centre of it. "You live by your wits, so come on. Give me a chance to show you I can live by mine."

Lupe snorted, which turned into a coughing fit, but the doctor didn't do anything except pour a glass of water and put that on the table too. He didn't try to shove it down her throat, just put it where she could reach it if she wanted. Lupe took a drink, not without giving him a suspicious look, but who cared if he was trying to drug her now? If she'd felt even a little hungry she'd send him out for some kind of fancy-ass dinner. He didn't owe her any less.

The cards, though, drew her eyes like they always had. Two jacks, clubs and spades, were on top, and under them the queen of hearts. They were creased down the middle so they tented as she set them on the table, just enough to make moving them easy. The little table was just low enough for her to reach with both hands without tiring herself out.

"You want the queen," Lupe said. Her breath came a little short in her throat, but the patter was drilled into her brain and she let it spill out. "The queen, she's a lady, she's your life," she said, starting to spin the cards around. As slow as she was going, the doctor couldn't help but see the pattern she was building, but his eyes stayed on her face like there was something to learn there. "She thinks she can hide from you," she said, "but you can find her if you try."

She stopped and tapped the table. "Come on, what's your answer?" she said. "You gonna live or you gonna die?"

The doctor looked more like a man then. Just a mark on the street with no idea where to look. Lupe didn't know if she liked that--knowing more than him, even just about the cards. But she could imagine better this way that he had a life outside his white coat, that he had people. Maybe he was right that they'd both come from the same place. Seemed like he needed to know that more than he needed to teach it to her, which could be why he'd brought her the cards in the first place. Asking her to perform one last time. Show that she was worth his time.

Solemn as church, he reached out finally. His finger hesitated over the jack of clubs--God, the man was dense, if this slow he couldn't follow her dance--and then he moved over. Center star, there she was. His fingers tapped, tilted the card, and Lupe nodded, turning it over. "It ain't no thing," she said.

"You did what you had to do," the doctor said. "I know how that feels."

She shuffled the cards, fanned them out, shuffled again. That was her life in her hands, that was her livelihood. She made them look, made them look where she wanted. See the pretty face, hear the pretty words. Not one of them ever knew what they should be looking for. "It's just a game," she said. She shrugged and slid the cards back into the deck. One queen lost in the deck, one lucky lady coming up hearts. All that mattered to him was his life. And she was part of it now, whether either of them wanted that or not.

He nodded, like he understood. "You played what you could," he said. "That matters."

Lupe lay back against the pillows and looked away. The next time he reached for her hand, she squeezed back tight.

* * *

"You know you're killing yourself."

The pill almost lodged halfway down House's throat, he was so surprised to hear moralizing coming from a new corner. He swallowed, scraping his esophagus to hell, but he made the Vicodin look as yummy as he knew how. Foreman's attention seemed focused on his business magazine, like he had stocks to keep track of instead of the same savings account as the rest of the world. "Wilson?" House asked, blinking around the room as if he'd been struck blind by a vengeful idiopathy. "Is that you? Have you developed a sudden interest in hip hop?"

Foreman flashed him a skeptical glance. "You have options. You're just not looking at them."

Well, wasn't that charming. No more "as long as House on drugs benefits me." Foreman had decided to put his oar in. If he wasn't careful, House would return it to him, firmly rammed up his ass with all the other sticks he had up there.

"And you've chosen to lecture me now because..." House wrinkled his nose and looked around the room. Cameron and Chase were probably having meth-fuelled sex around the next corner, and he was sorry to be missing the show. Nothing had changed in Foreman's life lately, but Foreman's life was so boring, finding a shiny penny on the sidewalk could give him that holier-than-thou glow.

"I'm not lecturing," Foreman said. "But you're shooting all your chances down the toilet."

House rolled his eyes. Foreman's modus operandi usually involved resigning himself to judgemental silence rather than judgemental jaw-flapping. That didn't make it as restful as Foreman thought. House got to his feet, a little stiffly, but that would fade once the Vicodin kicked in. He stumped over to the counter where he tore open a new box of Animal Crackers. "Interesting," he said. "I haven't changed, so this can't be about me, and you're the same stuffed shirt you've always been, so it's not about you. But you have a newfound interest in my choices, which means this is probably about someone you know who's made bad ones. Did your brother get sent to solitary for not sharing his toys with the other boys?"

Foreman sneered ever so slightly, so either House was off the mark, or he was so dead on that Foreman had steeled himself against any comments about his brother's intimate knowledge of the penal system. "You're the one who always says people will crash and burn."

House crunched a graham hippo ostentatiously. "Don't care."

"How can you _not care_?" Foreman frowned at him, arms folded. He was obviously--and annoyingly--trying to figure House out. Annoying because House taught him how to figure people out. "That's all you ever go on about, how doomed humanity is, how miserable we all secretly are."

"And I am miserable," House countered. "Just more secretly today."

With an exasperated sigh, Foreman slapped his magazine against the table. "Do you think we don't all know you're sleeping with Stacy Warner?" He raised an eyebrow, as if that was supposed to be a telling blow. "And you're enjoying yourself!"

House grimaced and brushed crumbs of his suit. Wilson wouldn't be the only one who noticed he'd ironed a shirt, and coming in at midnight to heal the sick and cure the wounded with a song on his lips hadn't exactly been discreet. "I thought about throwing a pity party for myself but I just couldn't decide on which invitations said 'getting some' best," he said. It wasn't like the rumour wouldn't be all around the hospital by morning. "I'll let her know to get started sewing on those scarlet As."

"And if she goes back to her husband...?" Foreman asked, as if he had any damn right to know.

House tossed the crackers back on the shelf and scrubbed at his forehead. The patient was dying and Foreman wanted to discuss his personal life. People who had strokes this late at night should just be shot. Nosy employees could be in line right after them. "She will," he said, distracted.

"You know that?" Foreman hesitated over the words, which was even more irritating than the interrogation was to start with. Maybe he _had_ changed; there had to be a reason he was breaking his own standards of not giving a shit about anybody around him.

"I know what I would do," House said, banging his cane rhythmically against the counter. "Short term happiness versus long term happiness? Utilitarianism--"

"Love isn't utilitarian," Foreman said.

That was probably one of the best lies Foreman had ever told. He probably exchanged love tokens on a pure value-added algorithm. House rolled his eyes. "The Love Doc speaks."

"Hey, I'm not telling you what to do," Foreman said. "I'm just pointing out your hypocrisy in acting like this is going to last."

House narrowed his eyes. Foreman shouldn't be allowed to go on the offensive. House's hypocrisy was not the issue. If anything, Foreman's was. He was the one who claimed to believe that people could be happy and get their damn jobs done, but there'd never been any sign that he could make a human relationship last beyond the networking phase. "Why are you questioning my motivations? Suddenly interested? I thought your career was all you cared about."

"It is." Foreman shrugged, amused and lofty. "And, strangely, you impact my career kind of a lot."

"Oh, don't make excuses. You're pointing out my hypocrisy because you're so certain you're not like that." This was going to get old fast. As little as House wanted to discuss Stacy with an underling, he wanted to hear Foreman's pronouncements even less. "Boring isn't better than hypocrisy. Boring's just boring."

Heavy guns, but Foreman's only answer was that mutinous, bullheaded look that meant he was going to be a big sullen lump for the next week. "Boring in your view--"

"In anybody's view!" House stabbed a finger in Foreman's direction. "Is this really what gets your rocks off? Criticizing me? Hardly original. Hardly even difficult. But you think as long as you're judging me, you can't be judged."

"I can take criticism--"

Right. As if House couldn't. "Like you take your coffee," House sneered. "Watered down. The same kind every time. You want to call me a hypocrite, go ahead, but don't pretend it's because your life is any better. The only reason you're trying to bring me down is because you see me reaching for something good, and if I do that, then you're not only boring, you have less initiative than the crippled addict!"

Foreman's cool, disdainful look pushed House to take two steps forward, looming over him. "You don't believe I can be happy?" he asked.

"Be happy all you want," House said. He could afford to give permission; it wasn't like Foreman would ever take him up on it. "But acknowledge that's what it is. No matter what else you do, you're acting in the best interests of your happiness, not your career, and not your life."

"You sacrificed yourself for her," Foreman said.

"Wondering how it's done?" House asked, since they were getting personal. "I know you couldn't manage caring for someone--"

Foreman smirked suddenly. "So you cared."

Foreman didn't know the first thing about putting anyone else first, so House doubted he could recognize it when the signs were right in front of him. "Yeah," he snapped. "I'm sure you're surprised." It might not last, it might not be right, but it was good, and it was better than Foreman would ever do.

"You cared," Foreman continued, "because you're killing yourself. You probably didn't want her to see."

"Dying sucks," House said. Any night in which no one tried to tell him his own goddamn motivations would be just fine by him. "Life sucks a little less. The idea that it's worth sacrificing is a lie meant to sell you something."

"Hey, House," Foreman said, right before he stalked out of the room. Despite himself, House turned to look. "Nice to still have you with us," Foreman said, chuckling.

He arched his eyebrow, the perfect sight line as House lined up the blow of his cane with the temporal suture of his skull. Murder might get his medical license pulled, though, and he still had one patient left. "Wow," he said. "Feel better now that I've admitted I care for somebody? Yeah, you really pulled one over on me." He shook his head and pulled the door open. "Go live a little, Foreman, before you spend your time sitting in judgement."

Foreman saw sacrifice and inferred caring. Whatever House chose, he knew what he was doing, and what he was giving up. It was a trade he was fine with making. He left Foreman sitting alone, and the sad part was, Foreman probably didn't even know it.

* * *

Alicia pushed the kitchen door open and stared around the living room. She'd have place to set her feet again, it seemed like. The boxes marked for Goodwill and storage were gone, and the small pile of suitcases had been taken out to the car. Eric came in, letting the screen door fall shut behind him. "Eric, shut that door gently!" Alicia said.

"Okay, Mom," Eric said, too excited to give her any lip, even though she'd been yelling about the door for about as long as he'd been slamming into and out of the house at all hours.

Alicia shook her head. "I suppose you'll shut the door however you like when you have your own room."

"I guess," Eric said. His eyes were shining. He was probably imagining every rule he'd get away with breaking, now, and not about feeding himself or getting his laundry done. "I'm nearly ready to go. Is Dad ready?"

Alicia put her hand to Eric's cheek, tsking when he protested, " _Mom_ ," and tried to duck away. "I'm going to college, not disappearing off the face of the Earth."

"Oh, New York is hours away," she said. "Don't stop your mother from saying a proper goodbye, Eric. You're all I've got left."

A mulish, guilty look appeared on Eric's face. Alicia sighed. "At home," she qualified. "Your dad's always so quiet. It's going to be different..."

"Without me stamping like an elephant on the stairs," Eric said. "I know, Mom."

He might be old enough to vote or join the army (and thank the Lord he hadn't), but Alicia was well within her rights to give him a stern look for interrupting. Eric ducked his head, but he was trying not to grin, and Alicia laughed. "Well, I promise I won't act like your mother in front of your friends," she said. "You think I don't know it embarrasses you. But I will tell you a secret, Eric. Every last one of them has a mother too."

Eric smiled, then, that brilliant smile from her brilliant boy. "No one as good as you," he said, pulling her into a tight hug, sudden and abashed.

Gallant. That was what she'd gotten for a son. If he'd had a hat he would have been sweeping it off his head. She missed hats on men--Rodney had always looked good in one. She shook her head, recalling herself to the present. "Thank you," she said, pushing him back and holding him by the shoulders, so that she could look into his face. "Since I've been cleaning up after you for seventeen years..."

"Nearly eighteen," Rodney said, coming in the door. "I've checked the oil. The car's ready."

Alicia smiled past the tightness in her throat. Eric was so tall--almost taller than his dad. Marc was taller, but he wasn't here...

Rodney reached out to take her hand, squeezing it warmly before letting go. "All right, Eric knows what he's doing, and he doesn't need us crowding him." He turned to Eric. "You and I both know you're going for school. That comes first. I don't want to hear about you losing your scholarship because you've been at parties all the time."

Eric shook his head, solemn again. Alicia couldn't help but see the serious, tear-stained face of the five year old he'd been, when he'd skinned his knee and she'd told him that peroxide would be good for him, even if it stung. "That's how medicine is sometimes," she'd said. And now Eric was going off, so sure of himself, so certain that he'd be a doctor. Alicia smiled again. "Say your prayers at least once a week," she said. "I know you won't make it back here that often, but you can still remember what's important."

"Mom, I'm not gonna screw up." Eric took both her hands, and looked at her earnestly. "I'm gonna make you proud of me."

He'd been working so hard for that, all the more since they'd lost Marc. She knew Eric thought of him, even if he didn't talk about him. Of all the second chances Marc had gotten, and used up. She and Rodney would be visiting Marc later, and she--who'd once known her boys so well--couldn't know if Marc was proud or bitter that his little brother had gotten full scholarships to Columbia University. Marc was taking high school courses when he could be bothered and when Rodney could badger him into them. Rodney himself had learned his trade and he'd always provided for them, but he'd never been to college. Some of Eric's cousins had gone to business school, but Eric was so sure he'd be the first one to finish his degree. And to be a doctor.

He was so serious, so studious. Alicia couldn't help wishing sometimes for the laughing little trickster she'd raised. He'd always been so rough and tumble with Marc, both of them wrestling and laughing and thumping on all her good furniture. "Oh, Eric," she said. "I am proud."

Eric smiled, but it was a smile that didn't quite trust her. Not like he had when he was her little boy, when any word she'd said had been taken in with wonderment. Now he knew better. He'd learned something of the world and he was sure--who had ever told him?--that he needed to prove himself to her.

Rodney clapped Eric on the shoulder. "Let's get a move on. Traffic's not going to wait." He was driving Eric up alone. Alicia had had Eric all his life, and he and Rodney rarely talked alone. She wanted to give Rodney some time alone with him, and from the way Rodney had nodded when she suggested it, she knew he wanted that too.

Whatever Eric did, whatever he became, he'd done so much already. Alicia knew it had cost him. The other boys on their street hadn't been coming by for video games and plates of her baking for the last while. Marc had called Eric _college boy_ when Rodney had told Eric in no uncertain terms that he was getting his ass in to that detention center to see his brother. Her Eric, how he'd folded up in the last year, how he'd gotten knotted up over schoolwork, how he'd stopped asking for help. "I can do it, Mom," he'd said, staying up all night to get those As that suddenly meant so much to him. Oh, she'd been hearing that since he'd first started tying his own shoelaces, but it took him farther from her this year than it had once.

"I know you're going to do well," she said. He wasn't her little boy--he was the young man she'd raised. He was going out into the world because of what she'd done, and no matter how he came back, Alicia would always be proud. "But don't forget to look around sometimes. There might be some pretty girls there."

Eric grinned, and for the moment he was hers again. He hugged her one last time, and then thumped upstairs--those feet of his, always growing out of one pair of basketball shoes after another--and came back down with the last suitcase. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll definitely look at the pretty girls." He kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be back for Thanksgiving." He caught the screen door as he left, and closed it as softly as goodbye.

* * *

"Look at me!" Marc shouted, pumping his legs until he was flying down the street. "See? It's easy."

Eric ran after him as fast as he could. His legs were so short and chubby. Marc laughed, looking back over his shoulder, until Eric stopped. He stood on the sidewalk with his arms crossed and a pout on his face that meant he'd be crying soon, the big baby.

Marc backpedalled sharply and left an awesome skid mark. Mom had said, "Play with your brother," and she always got so cheesed when Eric ran inside crying because Marc wouldn't wait for him. It was so boring to have a little brother. Marc sighed heavily and hopped off the bike.

Eric started running again and caught up with him, panting. "No fair--" he started.

Marc punched him on the arm. "I was _showing_ you," he said. "When you can ride your bike you can come with me to Damien's, okay?"

Eric frowned fiercely. "You didn't let me last time," he said. "You said I could come if--"

"Look, if you can keep up, you can come, right?" Marc rolled his eyes. "I'm not stopping you."

"But I can't--"

"Aww, Eric, stop whining." Dad said that all the time, so obviously Eric should just listen. But Eric would keep on complaining until he'd finally learned to ride a two-wheeler. Marc pushed the bike into Eric's stomach. "Just put your leg over."

Eric still looked upset but he did what Marc said. He was too short for the bike. Marc snorted. He'd just have to stand on his tip toes. Once he'd been banged in the nuts he'd learn. "Okay, now I'm gonna hold it, and you step on the pedals," Marc said.

Eric was actually really heavy. What a chore. Marc had punched some of the guys for laughing at Eric, because if your little brother was uncool that meant you were uncool. Marc had said what Mom did, that Eric was going into a growth spurt and he'd end up tall instead of fat soon. Maybe the biking would help. Once Eric was up, Marc said, "See, you're practically doing it!"

Eric grinned down at him, like Marc was the coolest ever. That was really annoying sometimes like when Eric wanted to follow Marc everywhere, but it was kind of okay right now. Since Marc was teaching him stuff. "Go ahead," he said. "Pedal."

Eric was fine at pedalling because he'd had a baby trike forever. He'd gotten too big for it and anyway maybe Marc had kind of laughed at him a lot for riding it, so he hated it now. But it meant he knew how to pedal. "Balance!" Marc shouted. Mom had taught him to ride, and he'd practiced all day until Dad had come home from work. He'd come walking up the street from the bus stop and Marc had ridden right by him on his bike and called, "Dad, _look_!"

Dad had looked, really looked, even if he was tired. When Marc came back and braked and everything, Dad had laughed and grabbed him into a hug and rubbed his hair. "Did you learn that all by yourself?" he asked, and Marc had said, "Practically!" Dad pinned him with the look that said Jesus hated liars, so Marc added, "Mom helped," and then Dad smiled down at him and said, "Well, good for you. You be careful crossing streets, now."

That meant that Marc was allowed to cross streets instead of staying on their boring block unless he had special permission or an errand to run. He'd puffed up his chest so big that night. No wonder Eric followed him like a puppy on a leash. Like an invisible leash that Marc couldn't get rid of, sometimes. But at least it meant that he had somebody to play with when Damien was grounded for stealing candy from the corner store. Marc hadn't gotten caught, and somehow that had made the candy taste even better.

"Keep going!" Marc shouted. He was panting, running at Eric's side. There weren't hardly any cars on this street so Eric had a lot of room, but if he didn't steer he was going to run right into a curb and skin his knees all to Hell. "Steer!"

"Marc!" Eric shouted. His legs were still going like pistons, and he looked scared out of his mind, but he was steering. "Don't let go!"

"I gotta!" Marc said. "You're doing great, just keep going!"

He let go, and Eric wailed "Marc!" but he did keep going. He didn't hit the curb, but he went all over the street from one side to the other. Marc started laughing his head off because Eric looked about as wobbly as Jell-O in a bowl, but he was going. Finally he stopped pedalling--he didn't try to brake--and then he put his shoes down to drag against the cement and finally stopped. Mom would kill him if he'd ruined his sneakers. Marc sprinted up the street, still laughing and panting. He slapped Eric on the back. "You did it!" he shouted. He'd taught Eric how to bike.

Eric's grin was tentative, but then it widened. "I can do it!" he said.

Marc slapped him again. "Not until you can get back by yourself," he said. "Come on, turn around, go back."

Eric's lip stuck out again, and he started to get angry, but then he twisted and pushed with his feet until he'd pointed the bike back up towards their house. "I _can_ ," he said.

"Right, so do it."

Eric slapped his feet against the cement to get going, and then he started pedalling. The bike jackknifed and he almost fell, but then he whipped it back around the other way--he'd really learned to balance!--and Marc was racing up the street again. He was right beside him because Eric was going so slow. "I can run faster than you can bike!"

"Can not!" Eric said, and started pedalling harder. Marc ran until he thought his heart would burst, but Eric got ahead of him.

"Let's really race," Marc said, as soon as he'd caught up. Running against bike wasn't fair. Before he could grab Eric's bike from the side of the house and trade him, Mom came out on the stoop.

"There you are," she said. "It's dinner time, you two. Come get washed up."

Marc sighed. Just when he was about to beat Eric. "Aww, five more minutes," he said. "Me 'n Eric want to keep playing."

Eric beamed. "Yeah!"

Mom shook her head and smiled, leaning against the door. "All right," she said, giving in. "You boys go on. I guess it's early yet."

 

 _end_


End file.
